It would be very helpful if you could tune your whole project to a different tuning scale. For different reasons. It’s possible in other DAWs already. And it’s not something new. Even John Lennon or Jimi Hendrix tuned differently and not always in A440. I have some clients working in music therapy or use music for healing processes. But practically tuning vocals in a different tuning is a pain right now. And not all vst instruments have the ability to tune precisely away from 440Hz. Thanks for reading this.
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Some more advanced audio cards can be tuned, you change the samplerate clock.
RME have their DDS for this. I think RME can be tuned up/down 5%.
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I would also like to have this feature
Just some facts first:
- They mostly tuned to other frequencies in the past, because there were some instruments used in their mixes/performances, which could not be tuned (i.e. organs, harmonicas, etc) , so all the other instruments had to tune to the frequency of that instrument (there were many different frequencies used, not just 432 or 444), not because one sounded always better than the other
- Another reasons is just, that a lot of people tuned by ear, so the tuning was off by a few Hz sometimes.
- Tape could slightly alter the speed after the recordings as well, causing different tunings (the
beatles used that on purpose) - Also Jimi Hendrix, John Lennon, The doors, did not tune to 432 Hz or other frequencies on purpose, despite all the nonsense you read on the internet
I won’t go into detail about all the esoteric stuff, 'cause thats just bollocks, but if the most instruments in a mix are tuned to one frequency other than 440Hz, this might be a thing which could be needed.
Usually its just single instruments, and in that case I’d use the “Fine-Tune” parameter to make it work with the rest of the instruments (in the case of 432Hz->440Hz you could detune it by +32 Cents).
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hi TJ99,
Thanks for sharing your facts and opinions.
A classical orchestra prefers to tune to 442Hz because most instruments sound better that way. When you mix it with digital instruments (plugins) you need to tune everything up one by one.
If you then have to record a classical singer and want to use the Variaudio tuning function to repair notes, it’s useless. Thankfully Autotune Pro has the ability to change the main frequency.
The audio fine tune trick is a possibility I knew about, but not ideal for the obvious reasons. Most important one is loss of sound quality . But thanks for the tip!
The esoteric reasons are actually the main reasons for some of my clients to record in another tuning and / or scale. So it’s not bullocks for a lot of people. It doesn’t just sound different but it FEELS totally different when you tune everything in a different frequency and / or scale. Especially acoustic instruments and the human voice. And it has a different effect on people.
It’s a very personal decision. And who am I to judge 440Hz , 12 tone equal temperament is the better one?
I don’t blame you though. Many people listen to music with their brain, but should feel it more with their whole body, especially their heart. And that is a totally different perception.
But besides that, we are so used (programmed) to listening in 440Hz equal temperament. Because most commecrial music is tuned that way here in the West. But in some Eastern countries it’s not used at all!
Entonal Studio is a plugin I use to play different scales with the vst instruments that don’t have a tuning scale option.
This requested Project Tuning / Scales feature should be a no brainer in one of the most professional DAW’s in the world!
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I’m the Cubase user since Cubase VST and with every new version I’m hoping for the ability to change the root pitch of the project. When I work on pop/rock project, 440 Hz is just fine. But at least half of my work are classical recordings - I usualy record clasical arias accompanied by piano/harpsichord or string quartet. And for this the usual tunig is a=441 - 442Hz. I really hate I can’t use vari-audio for perfect tuning of vocals at these recordings - or if I use it, I must change the perfect pitch for about 8% above the pitch that Cubase offers with a=440 
Steinberg, please, do something 
I’m waiting for this for about 10 years now…
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This is easily requested but I guess it would be a major addition to Cubase (= require a lot of work).
Just think about what it means to detune an entire project. How to address this to external MIDI synths? Waht about tracks that use the internal audio engine? Would you rather detune each track or even event individually (not you, but the developers) or - the easier way - the output of the entire engine at its very end? If the latter, what about recording new audio, how do you make sure it is not getting detuned, what will happen to the live monitoring?
If you therefore detune every track on its own how much CPU power will that cost on a project with 200 tracks?
This is by no means a small feature request.